Water Crisis in India : An Overview

Water is essential for life on earth. It is unequally distributed over the earth surface. Water scarcity occurrs due to both natural as well as anthropogenic causes. One of the major regions behind water scarcity is that its demand has increased twice than earlier as the population growing exponentially. Some of the major causes of water  scarcity are over use of water, pollution of water, drought, ground water pollution. Some problems arise because of water scarcity like lack of access to drinking water, diseases, sanitation issues, distruction of habitats. This paper is an attempt to investigate the causes and consequnces of water crisis. The data for present analysis have been obtained form secondary sources and various agencies. The main objective of the present paper is to attempt evaluation of the water resources. Study reveals that water is rapidly becoming scarce resource in India because the demand of water is increasing due to pressure of population and changing consumption pattern. For instance, in some parts of the study area, there is evidence of progressive declined in the water table due to over pumping by the tubewells. The situation is getting alrming year after year. These problems can be solved conjunctive use of surface and ground water. There is urgent need for the development of surface water irrigation where ground water utilization is high.